ON EPICUREANISM & STOICISM & FOUCAULT

GARY. C. MOORE - RICHARD SANSOM - KEITH SEDDON
Part One
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I have said before Aurelius quotes Epicurus with approval at several points. He does so at VII, 33 without naming him. He does name him at VII, 64; IX, 41.

Marcus says at XI, 26: QUOTE *The writings of the school of Epicurus lay down the injunction to remind oneself continually of one of those who practiced virtue in the days gone by.* Refer to Epicurus Fragment # 210, Seneca LETTERS XI, 8, XXV, 4-7. This is directly relevant to Hadot and Foucault.

Aurelius has a constant repetition of EITHER/OR going throughout the MEDITATIONS of the constrast between an Epicurean chaos of atoms or order as in Goddess Nature's natural law such as at VI, 10; IX, 28. Though he personally favors the later, he does give fair billing and even possibly of truth to the former. What I have seen in Epictetus [very little] is much less generous to Epicurus.

RICHARD SANSOM:

My last reading in bed these days has been Lucretius. An amazing fellow. I thought of Jud when coming across the following section:

From Book III, The De Rerum Natura, of Titus Lucretius Carus

This same doctrine Shows that the nature of both mind and spirit Must be corporeal. We are bound to admit That spirit and mind are properties of body When they propel the limbs, arouse from sleep, Change an _expression, turn a man around, Control him utterly, but none of this Is possible without contact, nor is touch Possible without body. Further more, You see that mind can sympathize with body, Share its emotions. If a weapon drives Deep into bone and sinew, and yet fails To shatter life entirely, still it brings Weakness, collapse, and turbulence of mind Within the fallen victim, a desire Half-hearted and confused, to rise again. So mind, which suffers under wounds and blows Must have a bodily nature.

[Translation by Rolfe Humphries -- there are others -- Gary might be familiar with some of them]

Regards, Richard

GARY.C. MOORE:
:I have Ronald Melville’s translation, Richard, so I need the line numbers to precisely locate this passage.

Now, Lucretius dedicates DE RERUM NATURA, Bk I, start, to Venus. But the consensus I have read - and I know a lot less than Richard - is that they are atheists, pure and simple. And, though Richard declines to be called an atheist, because one cannot reject a concept that cannot even be thought - a brilliant notion in my low judgment - I think the comparison of Epicureanism with Marcus Aurelius, and eventually Epictetus when I have more command of his texts, is extremely important. I have said before that Aurelius was a thorough going materialist throughout the MEDITATIONS and insistently so in a continuous reading of Book X. Espousing a God as material actually increases logical problems in one way for the concept. But, I must admit, it does get around Richard’s problem because, with a material God, one has substance and about substance one can make comprehensible propositions. On propositions, I wish you to reconsider a letter I sent long ago about *all existents are propositions* which relates directly to Aurelius, Hadot, and Foucault on writing the self since G. E. Moore’s proposition must logically have as a consequence that the self is just a verbal proposition.

From BERTRAND RUSSELL – The Spirit of Solitude 1872-1921 by Ray Monk

Page 117 – [G. E. Moore] endeavored to put in its place a stridently `realist' theory that insisted on a strict separation between WHAT we believed (a proposition) and our belief in it (a mental state). In this theory, propositions are `objective' – they are not `in our minds' but `out there' in the world.

Moore's greatest contribution to philosophy was `The Nature of Judgment' . . . the founding statement of the analytical tradition in philosophy . . . [Russell received a letter from Moore] in September [1898] summarizing his position – `My chief discovery', Moore writes in the letter, `which shocked me a good deal when I made it, is expressed in the form that an existent is a proposition. ' What this means is that, for Moore, a proposition is analyzable. In the Hegelian view, a proposition is a unity that defies analysis – in Moore's conception, on the other hand, it is a COMPLEX that positively cries out into its constituent parts, which parts Moore calls `concepts'. `A proposition' , Moore writes in `The Nature of judgment', is nothing other than a complex concept . . . A proposition is a synthesis of concepts . . . A proposition is constituted by any number of concepts, together with a specific relation between them.'

A `concept' in Moore's rather odd use of the word, is neither a word, nor a thought, but a `possible object of thought', something close to what Russell would later call a `logical atom'. Concepts are the building-blocks of the world. `The ultimate elements of everything that is are concepts,' Moore rote to Russell, `and a part of these, when compounded in a special way, form the existent world.' Thus, for Moore, and, even more crucially, for Russell, analysis is not – as it is commonly understood now – a linguistic activity, but an ontological one. To analyse a proposition is not to investigate a portion of language, it is not to attend to words, it is, so to speak, to carve up the world so that it begins to make some sort of sense. `A thing becomes intelligible first', writes Moore, ` when it is analysed into its constituent concepts.'

GARY. C. MOORE:
Foucault does seem to have a more popular view of Epicureanism. Hadot’s differences with him, however, demonstrate a close resemblance between Aurelius and Epicurus. Foucault says the Epicureans largely take pleasure in memories of the past whereas Hadot, Aurelius, and Epicurus all say happiness can only be found in the present. Foucault’s confusion comes about by misunderstanding the notion of *hypomnemata*, making notes to one self - the purposes of which need extensive examination- but which, as Rutherford demonstrates, was a well known act in Hellenistic and Roman times, and Hadot demonstrates Aurelius precise technique and says Epicurus advocated doing the same thing.

GARY. C. MOORE:
What I have seen in Epictetus [very little] is much less generous to Epicurus.

KEITH SEDDON:
Its worse than that. He dismisses Epicurus for being wrong. Worse than Epicurus being wrong is that fact that he is influencing other people to be wrong. Epictetus thinks that Epicurus is depriving people of the possibility for happiness by keeping them forever bound to vice.

I wrote this awhile back:

Notes on the conflict between the Stoic school and the Epicurean school

Note: LS = Long, A. A. and D. N. Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers, Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Includes readings from the main schools: Epicureanism, Stoicism, Scepticism, and the Academics. Includes commentaries on the readings. This is the standard primary source text. Volume 2 contains the original Greek and Latin.]

Epictetus criticises Epicurus and Epicureanism at several places in the Discourses (notably at 1.20.17–19, 1.23, 2.20, 3.24.37–40 and 3.7).

His main concern is that the Epicurean conception of ‘the end’ is mistaken. Epicurus says that the end is pleasure (and qualifies this quite extensively), and this directly conflicts with the Stoic notion of the end (identified as ‘living in agreement’, or ‘living in agreement with nature’). (See LS21 and LS61.)

At LS63A, Stobaeus says that ‘The Stoics say that being happy is the end,’ which identifies the end as eudaimonia, which is best translated as ‘flourishing’ rather than ‘happiness’. But of course, Epicurus says just the same thing (see LS21B2; at B1, ‘happiness’ translates eudaimonia)! The dispute concerns what constitutes eudaimonia.

The Stoics say that living virtuously is sufficient for happiness (LS61A2, for instance), but Epicurus says that the virtues are merely a means to that end (LS21P). So at the level of their most basic doctrines, the two schools disagree.

Another important concern for Epictetus is that over and above the Epicureans being in error, their teaching is also detrimental, both to society and to the individual (since, say the Stoics, pleasure is not sufficient for eudaimonia – indeed, it is not even constitutive of it – and failing to gain eudaimonia is an evil for the individual).

The Stoics hold that the capacity for virtue is innate (LS61L, for instance), whereas Epicurus says that this is not the case (LS22) and that ‘not harming’ is a social convention enforced by contract (22A). At 22B, Epicurus says that justice has a utility value, which is wholly at odds with the Stoic view. At 22H, he says that friendship should be pursued for the sake of the pleasure that can be gained by so doing. Epicurus is promoting a clear-cut egoism, whereas the Stoics teach a clear-cut altruism.

So in criticising the Epicureans, Epictetus is aware that he is trying to undermine the harm that he sees their doctrines as causing or promoting.

There are other differences as well. For instance, Epicurus teaches withdrawing from society literally, and leading the quiet life of retirement. The Stoics teach that one should take responsibility for one’s community and contribute to communal life in a virtuous way; the Stoics hold that one may ‘retire’ from trouble and strife without actually abandoning the attempt to contribute in a responsible manner.

The different views on God, fate and providence that the two schools adopt share absolutely nothing in common!

We must suppose that in Epictetus’ time the opposition between the two schools was well known and vigorously contended. His students must have expected him to say at least something about what is wrong with the Epicureans, and it is perhaps surprising that not more of this conflict is portrayed in the Discourses.